Sunday, October 30, 2005

Seasonal Magnets

Across the road from our driveway is another driveway. There is 1 acre of private property there, and it is surrounded by state-owned property. The only access to that bit of state property is via this private acre or other private property to the south. The northern boundary is a creek. This "creek" was man-made years ago, but overgrown now to the point where it looks natural. Beaver activity created a pond and swampy area a little ways to the west of this 1 acre. Further west of the beaver pond, the creek looks more like what it truly is... a very large, wide & deep drainage ditch.

This 1 little acre is a beautiful spot, with big oak trees on it. Around it, the state property is growing up thick because it was clear cut about 15 years ago. At the time it was clear cut, the 1 acre looked incongruously like the wooded version of an oasis in a desert. On the 1 acre is an old, abandoned brine well or booster station... basically a cement structure. This structure is hard to describe... it's like 2 sawhorses, only solid with square tops and set in with cement footings. There's no roof or top to it. It's large enough that you could park a small car in it, though you can't because it'd ruin the car going over the footings.

Carl & Arlene, a retired couple, own this 1 acre. They park their camper trailer on it and come up to go hunting. We almost always see them in the fall, but only once in a while in the summer. Sometimes they come up around 4th of July. Then they are usually here during mid-November for rifle season. They are the nicest people. Carl does more hunting, I think, than Arlene. She usually brings up craft projects. I think she does a lot of church craft bazaars and the like.

We let them use our outside faucets to get water, and Arlene has used our mailbox to send cards and letters out to her family & friends. We keep them stocked up with wood for their fire, since we have so much cut and split all the time. They have a great fire pit on their acre, surrounded by rocks they've brought up through the years. Arlene often cooks their dinners over a fire. We've also shared venison with them, because they usually don't get a deer. I don't think their primary focus is hunting, but more just getting out in the woods and enjoying the peace and quiet. They've had their acre longer than we've owned our property, and I think it was a relief to them that we aren't noisy and we get along with them. We enjoy knowing them.

Through the years, Arlene has left us little bags of craft goodies in our mail box, usually with a Halloween or Christmas theme. She's given us a few Halloween magnets, which we get out each year and put on our fridge, and then pack back away when we de-decorate. When we get the magnets out, we always talk about Arlene & Carl, wondering when they'll be up next, remembering when this or that about them, wondering how Arlene is doing after her back surgery... It's cool that she's given us so many magnets, because she probably doesn't know how much we like home-made refrigerator magnets.

about me...

I am a wife, mom, gramma, daughter, sister, aunt, great-aunt... yep, family is very important to me. I write this blog just for the fun of it... and because I like to use ellipses, and this blog is the perfect vehicle for that... I live by 2 mottos... one I grew up with of "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride" and the other, which is really more of our family's No. 1 rule, "no whining." I enjoy going barefoot.